Elephant Mountain—The Youngbloods

“Improbable” is a word that seems to crop up often in my reviews, of music and books. May have a lot to do with what I choose to review.

Certainly applies to this album and this band. Here’s a trio that put its folkie lead singer on bass, gets a jazz drummer, and lets its guitarist noodle endlessly—often unpleasantly—on electric piano (and not even a Fender Rhoades!). And all this after splitting from the frontman (Jerry Corbitt) who got top billing on your debut album (and the only credible songwriter in the group other than Jesse Colin Young).

Improbable.

Same for this, their finest album from a rather slim portfolio. Devote nearly seven of the album’s 30-some minutes to a vibes-driven reverie. And a few more to those electric piano nod-offs.

Add in some of the most enduringly repellant cover art of the 60’s, and you’ve hardly got the ingredients for an enduring classic.

Elephant Mountain is one of those magnificent records that manages to evade even the hip critics’ cult albums/bands lists. Like the great works of 60’s American pop and rock—Pet Sounds and Forever Changes being prime examples—Elephant Mountain isn’t easily classified. Like the Byrd’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and the Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds, again, El Mt is a departure from the group’s traditional sound, or at least from the folk-rock classification the Youngbloods usually get (when they get mentioned at all).

It’s typical for reviewers to make comparisons between the Youngbloods and Lovin’ Spoonful; some editions of the Rolling Stone Record Guide and All Music Guide both mention the Spoonful in their Youngbloods reviews. It’s also terribly misleading (and probably due to John Sebastian playing on an early ‘bloods album) as, other than the folk influence early in both band’s careers, both took wildly divergent paths away from that common influence. Of course, the most obvious difference is the relative success of the two; no idea how many times the Spoonful charted, but only “Get Together” did it for the Youngbloods, and that’s also the only song that ever represents them on oldies radio.

“Get Together” wasn’t written by the band and it isn’t on this album. Their single best song, though, is. It may be “Get Together” that turns up on Freedom Rock TV record collections, but “Darkness, Darkness” is a classic in its own right, generating two credible, very different cover versions (by Mott the Hoople and Robert Plant), two decades apart. “Darkness” is as brooding as its title, a song of resignation to an unspecified, grim fate, as if the lyric were a collaboration between Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. The vaguely eastern sound swirls menacingly around the restrained plea of Young’s vocal. This is a far cry from “Get Together”—farther still from “Sugar Babe”—and had essentially zero Top 40 potential. It’s the anti-“Sunlight.”

Given the individual Youngblood’s backgrounds, it’s hard to account for where “Quicksand” came from. Equally difficult is imagining Young writing or demo-ing this song on acoustic guitar. This kind of R&B-influenced rock wasn’t attempted often, and was successful even more rarely. Certainly, a lot of the credit for “Quicksand’s” sound must go to the string/reed/horn work (also true, to a lesser extent, of the Spoonful’s magnificent “Darling Be Home Soon,” maybe the best single accomplishment of their career) which compliments the song without overwhelming Young. Because, let’s face it, as distinctive as it is, Young’s voice can often be characterized as sort of delicate. As surprising as its light R&B sound, “Quicksand” is lyrically as downbeat as “Darkness, Darkness” but as buoyant as anything the band ever recorded. The tension and release, ebb and flow of the song overshadows the lack of a killer hook. Add in a soaring solo from legendary saxman, Plas Johnson, and you have a breathtaking three minutes.

Nothing they’d done before, even on this album, could have prepared us for “Ride the Wind.” The other keyboard-dominated tracks are either brief, under-developed jam excursions or more fully-realized, but overly long instrumentals like “On Sir Francis Drake.” “Ride the Wind” is a rare track of its vintage (although Spirit offered plenty of more overtly jazzy tracks), as soothing as its title, gently propelled by the interplay of Banana’s surprisingly restrained piano and a session player’s cool vibraphone. It’s about cooling out without being trippy about it. It’s a cool jazz reverie from a northern California hippie perspective.

Why didn’t the Youngbloods pursue ANY of the directions they tried with these three songs? Not only didn’t they attempt to incorporate any more dark and exotic (Darkness, Darkness), R&B (Quicksand), or cool jazz (Ride the Wind), the Youngbloods effectively quit trying to make any equally challenging music after Elephant Mountain. The four subsequent albums that closed out the band’s career were two live records (one fairly lousy, one very listenable and representative) and two loose, casual sets, mostly covers, that substituted the gloss of El Mt for back porch hominess. They effectively sputtered out of existence, with Young going to a solo career (offering a lot of pleasant music along with ill-advised revisions of some of the Youngblood’s best) and the others fading to obscurity.

Looking over the track list for Elephant Mountain, ranking it so highly in my record collection seems questionable, even to me. For every “Sunshine,” there’s a “Trillium.” On the strength of the big three cuts alone, though, the album remains a major achievement.

[Note: As long as I’m on the Youngbloods, what is with Lowell “Banana” Levinger and his fixation with playing piano? This may say more about my plebian tastes and general failure to appreciate quality free jazz—if that’s even what it is—but the sheer amount of time devoted to indulging Banana’s jones for the Wurlizter electric piano on Elephant Mountain and the two live albums, defies good sense. Again, I may be incapable of appreciating what he’s doing, and perhaps he’s actually doing it very well. They seriously distract from what the Youngbloods do best (play Young’s songs, often with innovative arrangements), in any case, and rudely disrupt the flow of El Mt, in particular. Maybe someone can explain why, despite his apparent lack of aptitude, Banana kept writing and recording these atrocities (see “Ice Bag” for a prime example) or, preferably, why I am missing the point.]

Thirsty for more of my Desert Island selections? Click here!